November 5, 2004—According to a report released last week from Massachusetts-based research firm Venture Development Corporation, the projected wave of new data produced by RFID implementations will overwhelm existing systems. More than half of the survey's respondents are highly concerned about the synchronization of this new data, while a full 58.9% worry about its overall quality. The main issue is that currently-installed legacy systems were simply not designed with the RFID revolution in mind. Not only are they often not fast enough to process the information, they also lack functionality to store, process, and leverage RFID data in a way that creates competitive advantage. Of course, this is already a well-known issue for most involved in RFID implementations, and certainly RFID middleware vendors, whose bread and butter is in solving this data problem, have been advertising solutions for over a year. And it is exactly these middleware vendors that should feel at once disappointed and encouraged by the survey: disappointed because it suggests they are still not adequately solving the data flood problem, and encouraged because there remains enormous demand for middleware that gets it right.